Newbie DarkRadiant Questions

[stumpy]

usually its

 

guis/mainmenu_briefing.gui

guis/assets/loading4.tga (screen shown when loading)

guis/assets/briefing1.tga (briefing background pictures)

guis/map/<missionname>.gui (loading screens, loading bar)

xdata/briefing.xd

 

are you saving the files as a zip then changing it to the pk4 file ext cos rar files dont work.

Edited December 5, 2010 by stumpy

[Fidcal]

Also worth checking the xdata troubleshooting section on the wiki in case you got a rogue quote mark or something. It was wrote for readables but same principles for all xdata....

 

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Readables#Test_your_Readable.21

[ungoliant]

what happens, exactly, if you have a visportal face that is showing in 2 seperate leafs? (not edges, they are encompassed in worldspawn). I'm having some.... interesting effects going on, just wondering if this might be related.

[Fidcal]

Can you do a diagram? I can't visualize how a visportal face would be in two separate leafs. Maybe someone else can. Unless perhaps you have a visportal across a corridor then straight through a wall and across a room but why?

[demagogue]

Yeah, the only way I can imagine it is if the same job could be done by 2 visportals. Leafs have to be hermetically sealed, so the VP face would have to be completely broken into two areas covering each leaf. But then you can just cut it into two VPs, one for each. Fun maybe just for experimenting and seeing what happens, but probably not a good idea...

[Mortem Desino]

It sounds like you've got two visportals intersecting in the open air. That's very prone to crashing the game.

 

 

It is OK for two VP edges to meet on the same plane, if you've got an oddly-shaped hole that you need to visportal.

[ungoliant]

Is there a particular reason that using resize tool on a brush often yields less accurate results than using "select faces" and resizing a face that way instead? if resize tool only selects the face you want to resize, the results should be the same, yes?

 

This is question is directed towards brushes that have strange offset angled edges.

 

Also, using resize tool by itself on strange angled edges sometimes results in dragging off-grid. If i have grid set to 2, sometimes if i drag back and forth, it will move 2 units x direction, or maybe 1.5 units or some strange amount in x direction. Both those results were on the same drag just moving mouse back and forth, so resize is not consistent sometimes, and this has happened much more than once. I use "select face" for accurate results now, but still, i wonder why this happens.

 

edit: still working up the intestinal fortitude to draw a mspaint diagram fid. will have it sooner or later. And no MD, they are not in open air, it cuts through brushwork into a new leaf and is visible from both sides. the brushwork it cuts through seperates both sides into 2 leafs.

Edited December 7, 2010 by ungoliant

[Rek]

Hi folks,

I got just one little question. How can I create an invisible light? I mean the light that casts light but the flame is invisible.

[ocn]

Hi folks,

I got just one little question. How can I create an invisible light? I mean the light that casts light but the flame is invisible.

 

Not sure what you mean exactly, but couldn't you just choose "Create Light" from the the pop-up menu that appears when you right click the grid?

[Rek]

No, the light from pop-up menu is static and i want moving light. I have a chandelier in my map and there is lot of candles and it would be nonsense to make every light on every candle dynamic. So what I want is on every candle only a flame that doesn't cast a light and one moving light (without flame) to cast light and shadows. I hope you understand what I mean, my english is not much good and maybe a little confusing

[ocn]

No, the light from pop-up menu is static and i want moving light. I have a chandelier in my map and there is lot of candles and it would be nonsense to make every light on every candle dynamic. So what I want is on every candle only a flame that doesn't cast a light and one moving light (without flame) to cast light and shadows. I hope you understand what I mean, my english is not much good and maybe a little confusing

 

Your english is good. I'm sorry I can't help you. I'm a beginner at this Dark Radiant racket, just thought I'd pop in and have a go at helping out. A little prematurely it would seem.

[Rek]

So, at least Thank you for your effort

[SiyahParsomen]

No, the light from pop-up menu is static and i want moving light. I have a chandelier in my map and there is lot of candles and it would be nonsense to make every light on every candle dynamic. So what I want is on every candle only a flame that doesn't cast a light and one moving light (without flame) to cast light and shadows. I hope you understand what I mean, my english is not much good and maybe a little confusing

 

well, you can place your candle flames and assign their light_radius property to 1 1 1. Then, place a moveable light source to the top of chandelier.

Edited December 10, 2010 by SiyahParsomen

[Fidcal]

Try this:

 

• 
   
  
• Create the model:
  
• models/darkmod/lights/extinguishable/chandelier_6candles_longchain.lwo OR...
  
• models/darkmod/lights/extinguishable/chandelier_6candles.lwo
  
• Name it Chandelier1
  
• Optionally give it noShadows 1
  
• Optionally convert it to func_pendulum and give it speed 0.5
  

 

• 
   
  
• Create light_extinguishable_moving and place it at about the height of the model candle flames but in the centre of the chandelier.
  
• Give it target ExtinguishChandelierScript
  
• If pendulum then bind it to the chandelier
  

 

• 
   
  
• Create a atdm:target_callscriptfunction and stick it in the middle somewhere.
  
• Name it ExtinguishChandelierScript
  
• Give it call ExtinguishChandelier
  

 

Create a plain text script file if you haven't already got one named mymap.script and put it in your maps folder

Put in it:

 

void ExtinguishChandelier()
{
$Chandelier1.setSkin("chandelier_candles_out");
}

 

Create a plain text skin file called say mymap.skin and put it in a skins folder

 

Put in it:

 

skin chandelier_candles_out
{
model models/darkmod/lights/extinguishable/chandelier_6candles.lwo
model models/darkmod/lights/extinguishable/chandelier_6candles_longchain.lwo

textures/particles/candlefire nodraw
models/mapobjects/hell/Site3/archviletemple/ candle_d tdm/candle_c_unlit
}

[Melan]

I have encountered a malloc failure error while dmapping my level. Instead of finishing with the dmap operation, it crashes midway with this error message. I suspect it may be related to level size or complexity - the map is at 8201 brushes, 6562 patches and 3698 entities, and uses 339 shaders, 495 models with 129 named skins.

 

Or hardware? This PC's got 2 GB RAM, which may be a bottleneck for all I know, although I have never had a problem running TDM missions, not even huge ones.

 

Anyway, if my level doesn't dmap, that's not good news. Is there a way to fix this issue without nuking a lot of what I have been working on, or asking Bikerdude every time I am done with a section to dmap for me?

Edited December 11, 2010 by Melan

[Melan]

Update: tried the following methods to try and fix the issue:

1) monsterclipped large parts of the level where the AI don't go;

2) turned two visportals to sky to cut down on interconnections on the above-rooftop level;

3) finally, filled a part of the level with caulk to see if that would help.

 

Dmap still doesn't work.

 

Here is the end of the error dump:

 

############### entity 3407 ###############

--- FaceBSP ---

6 faces

32 leafs

0.0 seconds faceBsp

----- MakeTreePortals -----

----- FilterBrushesIntoTree -----

1 total brushes

8 cluster references

----- ClipSidesByTree -----

--- FloodAreas ---

area 0 has 24 leafs

1 areas

----- PutPrimitivesInAreas -----

----- OptimizeEntity -----

----- OptimizeAreaGroups Results -----

48 tris in

12 tris after edge removal optimization

12 tris after final t junction fixing

----- FixGlobalTjunctions -----

############### entity 3408 ###############

--- FaceBSP ---

18 faces

50 leafs

0.0 seconds faceBsp

----- MakeTreePortals -----

----- FilterBrushesIntoTree -----

3 total brushes

16 cluster references

----- ClipSidesByTree -----

--- FloodAreas ---

area 0 has 34 leafs

1 areas

----- PutPrimitivesInAreas -----

----- OptimizeEntity -----

----- OptimizeAreaGroups Results -----

116 tris in

36 tris after edge removal optimization

36 tris after final t junction fixing

----- FixGlobalTjunctions -----

############### entity 3409 ###############

--- FaceBSP ---

85 faces

212 leafs

0.0 seconds faceBsp

----- MakeTreePortals -----

----- FilterBrushesIntoTree -----

0 0 1280 1024

Regenerated world, staticAllocCount = 0.

--------- Game Map Shutdown ----------

--------------------------------------

Shutting down sound hardware

idRenderSystem::Shutdown()

Shutting down OpenGL subsystem

...wglMakeCurrent( NULL, NULL ): success

...deleting GL context: success

...releasing DC: success

...destroying window

...shutting down QGL

...unloading OpenGL DLL

------------ Game Shutdown -----------

--------- Game Map Shutdown ----------

--------------------------------------

Shutdown event system

--------------------------------------

 

Edited December 11, 2010 by Melan

[AluminumHaste]

This is what I've done to fix this exact issue.

 

Open the map in DarkRadiant, select everything, copy to clipboard.

Open another instance of DarkRadiant and paste from clipboard. Save as new filename and dmap new file and that has worked 3 times now with random unresolvable crashes.

 

Also what you can do is open the map file and look up entity 3409 and remove it and then try to compile.

[Shadowhide]

I think darkmod can overcome dromed limits

I'm wrong

To create 1 room in dromed you need one brush,to create one room in DR you need 6 brushes

 

8201 brushes / 6 = 1366.8 + 1000 brushes (thats used like patches in DR) = 2366 + 500 (as models and entities) = 2866 in dromed,so you didn't get any optimization errors with that number

[AluminumHaste]

I think darkmod can overcome dromed limits

I'm wrong

To create 1 room in dromed you need one brush,to create one room in DR you need 6 brushes

 

8201 brushes / 6 = 1366.8 + 1000 brushes (thats used like patches in DR) = 2366 + 500 (as models and entities) = 2866 in dromed,so you didn't get any optimization errors with that number

 

Well that's assuming that brush count = triangle count. 1 Air brush in dromed gives you a 6 sided room. Now how is that rendered? If it's similar to Doom 3 that's at least 2 triangles per side, the same as doom 3.

[Melan]

This is what I've done to fix this exact issue.

 

Open the map in DarkRadiant, select everything, copy to clipboard.

Open another instance of DarkRadiant and paste from clipboard. Save as new filename and dmap new file and that has worked 3 times now with random unresolvable crashes.

Thank you. On experimenting further, the problem seems to be visportal-related. On my first copy/paste attempt, I forgot to turn off the filter for VPs (and clip textures, although that's way less likely to be the reason). That way, the level compiled fine - and managed to run, although the performance was of course very poor. Therefore, we can safely rule out a "brush" or "patch" limit. On creating another build with visportals in place, the error has returned.

 

Where to go from here?

[Mortem Desino]

GC and I have found correlations between visportalling and mAlloc errors.

 

Time to re-arrange your visportals. In NHAT, we had many malloc problems until we retooled how each area was portaled. Originally, every other visleaf had tons of entities, while half had hardly any. That's not neccessarily bad, but it strains the dmapper when one or two visleafs are cluttered with entities that really bloat your mapname.proc file. We added a few more portals to even out entity distribution, and dmap was happy again.

[AluminumHaste]

Thank you. On experimenting further, the problem seems to be visportal-related. On my first copy/paste attempt, I forgot to turn off the filter for VPs (and clip textures, although that's way less likely to be the reason). That way, the level compiled fine - and managed to run, although the performance was of course very poor. Therefore, we can safely rule out a "brush" or "patch" limit. On creating another build with visportals in place, the error has returned.

 

Where to go from here?

 

Is there a limit to visportals? Try removing some from another are and see if you can compile then.

[Melan]

Hm, this may be more complex than anticipated. Just to make sure it really was visportals, I created yet another map build which had VPs in place, but I removed a few huge monsterclip brushes which blocked off parts of the map. I ran DMAP, and it got to the stage where it was writing the .proc file before a crash happened. However, the .proc was of normal size, so I loaded up the map. This time,

1. almost everything is perfect - architecture, entities and sounds work, and performance is very good (a huge relief!).
2. only one thing is wrong: some AI patrol as they should, but some others either stand and go through their turning motions or walk in smallish circles.

So, removing monsterclip surrounding large stretches of the level happened to do the trick - or almost do the trick - which was contrary to how I viewed monsterclip before. Or maybe I am still near some kind of complexity vs. memory boundary that impedes DMAP. I will send a version to Bikerdude to see if his PC will compile the map with working pathfinding or not.

 

In the meantime, share your thoughts etc.

[Melan]

Is there a limit to visportals? Try removing some from another are and see if you can compile then.

I'll try adding some back to see if it produces a crash.

[Melan]

Results: as before, visportals work, performance still good despite VPs' central location, pathfinding problems persist. The interesting thing is, some AI are unaffected, some AI may be partially affected (they make their rounds - but walk in circles and meander more), and some do not patrol at all. Hm.